Any Electricians in the house?

[TheVTCGuy]

Yeah... well, I am not blowing up my home or anything (surprising) but trouble-shooting a friends house. The porch light is 12V DC, which shocked (pun intended) me, but figured it out. Now, I am working on the walkway lights, they all run to a junction box, plug (three prong) in to a digital timer, (three prong receptacle) which plugs (again three prong) in to the box/wall of the house. This plug is 12V DC as well, I guess powered by the same transformer. My friend kept plugging in new bulbs but nothing worked. Of course they were all 120V AC bulbs, I put in 12V DC bulbs and magic! They all came on.

The problem is the timer, it never turned the lights on/off. Bypassing the timer and plugging it straight in to the wall the lights work fine. I checked out the timer and discovered it is a 120V AC, no wonder it does nothing. The model is a Westek TE05W. It hasn’t worked in years and my friend can’t remember what work was done on it (ex husband) but this is the weirdest set up I have ever seen. Here is the bottom line:

Everything works, I just need to install a programmable timer. The problem is, it is all 12V DC and the only DC timers I find are cable-connect, in and out. Since the receptacle in the house wall and the cable for the lights are three-prong, I need a 12V DC THREE PRONG in and out timer. Any of you smart electricians ever hear of such an animal? I haven’t, and my internet searches are proving fruitless.

I thought of somehow coming from the transformer with another cable, but that’s getting a little too in depth for me, if I could just find a 12V DC programable timer that has a three prong plug and receptacle I’m all set.

If anyone in Southern California notices a lot of fire engines going by you will all know I tried the transformer-cable solution... The rest of you will probably see it on the national evening news.